Sam Altman responds to ‘incendiary’ New Yorker article after attack on his home

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly responded to a volatile combination of personal danger and professional criticism. Early Friday morning, an individual allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman's San Francisco home before being arrested at OpenAI's headquarters. In a blog post, Altman linked the attack to the recent publication of a lengthy, critical New Yorker profile by journalists Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz. The article, based on interviews with over 100 sources, painted a portrait of a CEO with a "relentless will to power" and raised significant questions about his trustworthiness, quoting an anonymous board member who described a "sociopathic lack of concern" for the consequences of deception.

In his response, Altman admitted to underestimating the power of narratives and acknowledged a "bunch of mistakes," including being conflict-averse, which he said caused "great pain" during the 2023 board crisis. He described the intense competition in AI as a "'ring of power' dynamic" that "makes people do crazy things." His proposed solution is to broadly share AI technology so that "no one [has] the ring." Altman concluded by welcoming good-faith debate but pleaded for a de-escalation of rhetoric and tactics to prevent further literal and figurative explosions.